"...Because of its subliminally psychedelic effect, cannabis when pursued as a lifestyle, places a person in intuitive
contact with less competitive behavior patterns. For these reasons marijuana is unwelcome in the modern office
environment, while a drug such as coffee, which reinforces the values of industrial culture, is both welcomed and
encouraged. Cannabis use is correctly sensed as heretical and deeply disloyal to the values of male dominance and
stratified hierarchy." - Terence McKenna

Disclaimer:
No, I don't think Cannabis is 100% harmless either. But whether you admit it or not, keeping pot illegal while endorsing liquor has hypocrisy and double standard written all over it.
The foreign labor argument most likely doesn't mean much nowadays, but it was among the driving forces behind the pot prohibitionmovement.
Feel free to downvote me if the D.A.R.E. voices inside your head tell you to do so. I understand.

I must say I'm happy to see many countries and even U.S. states starting to slowly move in the right direction. Each area naturally has a strong opposition refusing to use its brains, and we still have a long way to go before we see the right decisions being done on a larger scale. But any positive development, no matter how small, is good.
Here in Finland we have no signs of any support for legalization. With hardcore prohibitionists like Ville Itälä in power and the general against-everything-attitude of the Finnish masses, it's safe to say no one will be smoking a legal joint here in a 100 years.

That does not stop US politicians to make other mistakes, even similar mistakes. Well, at least illegal drugs are not unconstitutional.

Personally, I have never used any of the illegal drugs. I would not use them even if they were legal. I think they should be legal. Not because I approve of them but because I believe there is a fundamental human right to do dumb things.

So there has been a mindshift. Good Thing. However, the gap between a mindshift and a policy change is *huge*. Modern politics (and please dont believe anything else: Pot legalisation is a political issue, not a health and safety issue) is all about public perceptions and PR nonsense. The whole spy plane incident shows that all politicians are afraid of is public policy retractions or having to change their minds in front of the people. Politicians believe that having to apologise, or account for a mistake, is equivalent to political suicide. And hey, it probably is in this mad world we live in.

So, its my assertion that because legalising pot now would be the political equivalent of saying "Yes, all those longhaired hippies in the 60s were right, sorry for locking you all up. Peace?". And you show me one politician who is prepared to do that, and I'll show you someone who I would actually vote for... But, horribly enough, any politician who would say that is not really a politician as we know it, and would never really get into a position to even make such a statement.

So, forget trying to prove that pot is not as damaging (to individuals *and* to society) as alcohol is. This is not the issue. The issue is whether or not the global political climate can handle a radical policy change like that. I seriously doubt it.

The consensus here seems to be that this is both a political and economic issue. Can’t argue with that, just want to point out as part of the economic argument that alcohol is moderately difficult to make, thus all the commercial suppliers. While pot is so incredibly easy to grow, it’s a weed, that everyone could supply themselves. Not much of an industry could be built up over legalizedpot. On the other hand as an illegal industry it’s doing gangbusters.

The Federal Bureau of Narcotics began a massive anti-hemp lobbying campaign, citing all sorts of spurious "scientific" data about the dangers of hemp to the American people. This was, of course, true...if you define the "American people" as the E.I. Du Pont Nemours & Company board and shareholders.

Imagine: a foreign country comes into the american South and wages chemical warfare to wipe out an incredibly lethal drug which the U.S. forces upon them. Tobacco. There would be outrage. Possible out and out war. Of course, when we do this in South America to subsistance coca farmers, it's okay.

Alcohol and tobacco are home grown or, at least, they feel that way. Nice, respectable, white Europeans were drinking alcohol long before they conquered the Americas. Tobacco was, of course, discovered here. It also became a lucrative trade commodity among nice, respectable, white Europeans...particularly the monarchs. All reasons to have never made these substances illegal in the first place (Prohibition notwithstanding).

Some of the above information was taken from Unraveling an American Dilemma: the Demonization of Marihuana(sic), a master's thesis written in 1995 for the Division of Humanities at Pepperdine University by John Craig Lupien. Many thanks to Mr. Lupien.

I have to jump in here real quick and disagree with eav. Cannabis, in its day of widespread usage, was practically a wonder crop, and it still would be if it were in use today. You can make very high quality rope, clothing, and general consumer materials such as backpacks, wallets, belts, shoelaces, hats, and virtually anything else that can be made out of leather, cotton, or similar materials, out of hemp, a product derived from the stem of the cannabis plant. Even better, all of it is EXTREMELY durable. You can also make paper out of hemp, at the same quality as paper made from trees. The key difference there, though, is that you can get four times the amount of paper from an acre of cannabis that you can from an acre of trees, and the cannabis plants will return at full size the next year, rather than taking many, many years to grow back like trees do. And all of that is just out of the plant's stem. The cannabis plant also yields edible seeds similar to poppy seeds, and the oil from the plant can be made into a cooking oil that makes a fine substitute for vegetable oil.

All of those products are, of course, in addition to the product of the cannabis plant that we all know about already: marijuana. While the value of marijuana in an open, legal market is debatable, I think it would do at least somewhat well. It should be noted, however, that cannabis plants that do not have the main narcotic ingredient of marijuana (THC) in them are rather easy to produce, and I believe Canada already produces these non-marijuanacannabis plants in some regions.

If hemp were indeed so much more productive, the industry (at least parts of it) would lobby for its legalization, not against it, as higher productivity directly translates into a competitive advantage. The
processing branch of industry would have only benefits, and only
those parts of the producing branch of industry that cannot switch over to hemp would have disadvantages - and how difficult is it to switch a field from one crop to another? Incidentially, the processing branch is much bigger and thus more powerful than the producing branch.

Also, hemp would support fewer farmers, not more - higher productivity means that fewer producers will satisfy the same demand, and the overall demand would not rise.

If hemp did indeed replace many other
useful plants, the resulting huge monocultures would eventually result in a shitload of problems with diseases and vermin - just because it's called weed doesn't mean it's magically resistant against everything.

The USA is not the whole world. Growing hemp is perfectly legal in many countries. If hemp were so much more productive or resulted in products with superior quality, it would play a dominant role in such countries and even in imports. Yet, this is not so. Growing low-THC hemp variants has been legal in Europe for a few years. Experiences are positive, but not sensationally so.

To conclude: while the marijuana scare in the USA may be exaggerated, much of the propaganda spread by hemp activists is just as bad. They're not doing their cause a favor by exaggerating the plant's virtues so ridiculously and painting it as a botanical Jesus, the saviour of mankind from all economic troubles.